The best memorable meal was with my family in Sicily on the waterfront at my great grandmother’s house. It was filled with local delicacies. She made homemade macaroni with a ragu, a lamb tomato sauce. We were around a big table out on the lawn, big oak trees, beautiful breeze. And we ate octopus, braised with tomatoes, pepperoncini and wild fennel. We had grilled spleen on crostini. We had roasted lamb, beautiful prawns, grilled, simple, with lemon and olive oil.
The only chef to have been named both a James Beard Best Chef (Northeast, 1994) and one of People Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People”, 50-year-old Todd English has been packing them in ever since he opened his first Olives in Charlestown Mass in April 1989. Now operating over a score of restaurants, English always has a new project on the boil, whether in restaurants, books or TV. Gourmet Live guest columnist Victoria Recaño got the latest dish about English’s love for peanut butter, his plans for 2011 and which vegetable he prefers to keep off the Olives menu.
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